“Ihope in the Lord, I trust in his word;
in Him there is mercy and fullness of redemption.”
This verse from Psalm 130 has a special significance for
one who has experienced the call of the Master
from the lake shore. My vocation began long before
I perceived it, and probably long before I existed. God’s
providential action upon my life is a great design
that I first recognized about twenty years ago, a
design of God’s love that’s worth telling.

Family Background

My father
is a reserved, hard-working man of deep religious conviction
from rural Illinois, of German descent (which accounts for my
last name). His closeness, inspiration, and unwavering example positively
influenced my childhood years, giving me that initial formation
for which I will always be grateful.

My mother is an Italian immigrant of Croatian heritage.
Profoundly pious and very energetic in living out her
vocation to motherhood, she was responsible for the tangibly
religious atmosphere in our home. This first catechesis fostered in
me an openness to imitate the saints, appreciate the
Mass, and pray the Rosary. It was the fertile
ground in which my vocation was born.

I have three older sisters, each of whom played
an important role in my early formation, sometimes actively,
and other times simply by giving the healthy counterbalance
to the spoiling attention that the youngest in the family
may receive.

In the Beginning

I perceived the first hints of the
priestly vocation around the age of ten. It was a
simple affinity to the things priests do: he brings
people to God, and that had to be something
great. My family environment, where we all understood that the
goal is to become a saint, certainly helped a
lot to foster this affinity, but there were also
other elements: the dedicated testimony of diocesan priests I knew,
as well as the lives of the missionary saints
with which I became familiar—thanks to the attractive publications
of this sort that Pauline Books and Media provided—and
finally the visits of some of the priests and religious
of the Legionaries of Christ to my home in

St. Louis, Missouri.

I had always wanted
to graduate from the Air Force Academy, as had my
brother in law, and become a pilot. Naturally, my
affinity to the priesthood had to compete with these
plans. I started looking for ways to reconcile the
two: surely they could use a flying chaplain? When I
realized my eyesight fell short of the 20/20 vision
that piloting required, the airplanes lost a little of
their grip on me. Thanks to the encouragement given me
by Fr Kermit Syren, LC, in August of 1991,
I went to the summer program of the Legion’s high-school
seminary, or apostolic school, in Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
It was love at first sight: the environment was
joyful and it gave me the spiritual and human
challenge I was looking for. It took a few years,
for me to realize that every experience of that
summer played a particular role in drawing me to follow
God: not least the White Mountains, where the apostolic
school was located, a welcome contrast to my flat
hometown state (“If hiking the White Mountains was thrilling,”
I thought, “what would skiing them be like?”). It was
the “topping off” of an early decision: I was
twelve years old at the time.

But
God’s plan for me was to take a little
longer. I told my family of my decision to join
the minor seminary, and they did not approve. It
was five against one: two parents and three sisters,
so I had to yield. Things took a turn a
year later when in 8th grade I attended the
school started by the Legion in my home town, Gateway
Academy, in its foundation year. The experience meant a
lot for me, highlighted by the 8th grade boys’
Easter pilgrimage to our major seminary in Cheshire, Connecticut,
and the one at Center Harbor that I already knew.
My interest in the apostolic school was reawakened when,
upon arrival to Center Harbor, I saw all of my
friends from two summers past—now wearing the characteristic red
sweater uniform of the apostolic school. Things simply could
not remain this way: they were already on the
road towards the priesthood, I was not, and the summer
was barely four months away.

The
summer of 1993 rolled around, I did the summer program
again that August, and the month-long program shot by
as if it were a week. At the end of
it, my dad told me that my soccer team
back at home, the team I had drilled with
and played for the past 8 years of my life,
finally won the regional tournament (while I was gone). This
news put me into a rueful mood, and it
took me a little while to recognize the rather
blunt hint from God that I had to leave it
all behind: the apostolic school would have to take
first place or no place.

The moment
I really awaited was the beginning of the school
year: I envisioned myself wearing the coveted red sweater
of the seminarians. That landmark moment of my life
came September 3rd, and my emotions ran high. Even though
this initial sentiment wore off with time, my desire
to achieve the ideal and mission of the Legionaries
of Christ was rooted in me.

Maturing
the Call

Since then, it
has been a story of God’s constant grace and gentle
hand guiding my life, mediated by the Blessed Virgin
Mary. Whether that meant passing Latin, with which I
struggled in my freshman year, being accepted to the religious
profession of vows at the end of novitiate, or
being ordained to the priesthood of Christ, I have
learned that the Lord chooses whom He wills. The calling
is essentially God’s business, as long as there’s cooperation
with his divine design. I am eternally indebted to
this presence of God in my life and that he
chose me to be a soul consecrated to him.
My deep gratitude extends in a special way to
my superiors, who are instruments of God. I look back
upon the days and nights of their sacrifice and
concern for my formation, and today I bear witness
to their efforts for the priest I have become.

FR GREGORY USSELMANN, JR.,was born on January
16, 1979, in St. Louis, Missouri. He completed elementary
school in 1993 as member of the first graduating
class of Gateway Academy, the Legionary elementary school in
Chesterfield, Missouri. He began freshman year that fall at Immaculate
Conception Apostolic School, in Center Harbor, New Hampshire, and
completed high school in 1996, entering the novitiate of
the Legionaries of Christ on September 15 of the
same year. He completed his studies in the classical
humanities in Cheshire, Connecticut in 1999. During his internship, he
was the dean of students at Oaklawn Academy in
Wisconsin, and later on for the Legionaries’ high-school seminaries
in Ontario and California. He obtained a licentiate in
philosophy in 2007 and a bachelor’s degree in theology
in 2010 at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum College in
Rome. He has published articles in numerous publications, and he
presently does youth and retreat work for the Legionaries
in the state of Ohio.

The vocation stories of the Legionaries of Christ
who were ordained in 2010 have been published in the
book "From the Heart of Christ."